ive found half-rotted straw, some crumbled leaves, and paper make a good bedding where I am. Just leaves seems to be too aerated/non clumping and dries out.

I try not to feed much more than a large handful of food to a small colony, that shouldnt overheat. If youre woried, you can leave the food in a bucket for a few days until it molds. I was down to almost as few worms, and re-started in a plastic bin.

You say the board gives partial shade? the earth will keep them cool-ish, but they just might need more water/cooler temps.

good luck!

Hi garnetmoth,

Sounds sensibleÂI will try varying the bedding more, and feed them small amounts regularly, and see how I get on.

The board completely shades the hole, but is spaced above the ground to allow air circulation (and therefore evaporation, which hopefully keeps things cooler than they would be otherwise).

The temperatures in the bedding seem OK to me, but I think I need to make sure I sprinkle water every day without fail to stop the whole thing drying out too much.

Thanks,

Martin

Martin,
With such a small population, I would suggest moving your worms inside to a more controlled environment. This would prevent them from escaping underground or falling victim to birds and rodents. A 1-gallon or 3-liter bucket should be enough to grow your population for at least 3-4 months.

I've also found that just a small amount of bedding and food will keep them close together and encourage more mating. However, it will also require more misting to maintain a good moisture level,(although a plastic bucket will retain more moisture than a hole in the ground.

Good luck to you!
Dramalady

those are some great observations/suggestions Dramalady!

Mine were in a wood box, but outside it dries out too quickly. the plastic bucket is much easier for me to um... benignly neglect ;-)

Hi Dramalady,

That's a great idea! I'll have to try to convince my other half to allow worms in the house though...

Thanks!

OK I am going to go against the general concensus and tell you what has worked for me.

The more food the better, as long as you use the layering technique as in one layer browns/bedding then 1 layer food scraps. I would also let it pile up much deeper with the layers.

As to the indoor bin, just stick the worms in a plastic pale or pot with a lid and whamo instant worm bin. I have many of these around the house and hubby just thinks its dirt.

In one of my experiments I put 50 worms in a 12 inch pot with soil and then added 50% food and kept restocking by 3 months time I had more worms than I could count and by all the vermicomposting standards I had broken many rules. The soil was very wet most of the time and soil is supposed to suck as medium.

Just think of outdoor spots in where the more organic matter the higher concentration of worms. In vermiculture in where you aim not for castings but for higher worm populations the trick is to give them lots of room and lots of food.

Worms are not as dainty as we all assume, they will survive in spite of us.

If your old wooden worm bin was outdoors I don't think you killed the worms but rather that they went in search of better living accomodations.

The layer method is my favourite since one layer can heat up but there are always other layers to escape to.

Hmm. That may be an idea worth pursuing. However, I am scared of giving them too much food given my previous experienceÂlast summer I managed to kill off most of my worms by overheating the box. The combination of Israel summer temperatures and the heat produced by the microherd were just too much. Maybe in cooler climates this would work better. Though I guess if there was enough bedding there would always be cool spaces to escape to, as you mentioned. (How deep is your layered bin, by the way?)

The only time I saw worms leaving the wooden box was after heavy rain (some of which got into the box and made the bedding too damp). But just because I didn't see them escaping doesn't mean they didn't :)

I think I'll try moving a few worms into a small container indoors and see what happens. At least it's a lot cooler indoors.

lol... I think it's funny Anisten that you have several placed around the house that your DH doesn't know are worms. Wouldn't it be fun to be a fly on the wall if he looked a little closer one day and realized differently?

Something I might try too if DH is not too excited about the first one... I may be ok though. The worms were to be shipped out yesterday and he asked me if they were here yet. Hope that means he's at least interested. :)

Adding manure to the bed will probably have the best effect of population. Horse works best for me. I would fix a small bed in a box like mentioned earlier and keep a cover on the top to let the worms feed and party on the surface 24/7 in the dark. use a piece of cardboard on top of the bedding or several layers of newspaper. They love cardboard also and really don't need any "feed" if they have good bedding. Use this bed as you nursery bed and move worms out as they grow to the other bigger bed.

I am also in Israel, I don't know how you can keep the worms outside, it is far to hot and dries out too quickly. I am new to this so perhaps should not offer too much advice.
I have mine in the large box from Ketter, it as a gray flap on the top which I leave open for air. I painted it black to keep it dark inside. I use mainly shredded newspaper, I even take other people's junk mail from the junk mail bin to shred. I think I am keeping it wetter than recommended.
My worms favourite food is watermelon skin, they go crazy for it, I cut it up quite small. I am planning to get some of the window anti-mosquito net to use for harvesting. Presently I am just taking out handful of the black stuff and mixing it with water and watering the plants with it. I am in an apartment so I dont have many plants, mainly on the balcony.

Devora and sagipolli, I too have very long hot summers and it's that dry searing heat that Im sure you're familiar with :), although perhaps not quite as hot as your region. there's a few things I've done to make sure the worms dont suffer in the heat, and my bin is VERY low maintenance.

when I designed my wooden bin (which a relative made for me), I made sure the sides had sections cut out to allow air flow, it stops any heat building up in the bin and keeps it ventilated. think of when you get into a car after it's been parked out in the summer sun, then imagine the difference if you'd left the windows down, the car would be at least 10c degrees cooler! - ventilation is very important in the heat.

the bin has a lid to keep it dark in there, but it's kept outside tucked under a tree where it never gets sun on the bin. I think it's much better to have it under a shady tree or shrub where the air can move around it instead of inside a garage for example which gets hot and there is no air flow

Lastly, I experimented with different bedding in the beginning and found that most of it was just too prone to drying out in the heat, and moistening the bedding 3 or more times a day in summer just wasnt practical. I started using coir bricks for bedding and that really made it low maintenance, I hydrate one or two bricks, lay it on some paper or cardboard, put some food on top and then put moistened paper on top of that. Of course the moistened paper doesnt stay moist for very long but just having it on top I think slows evaporation from the bedding. the only time I need to use the coir is after harvesting and when I'm restarting things, once the castings start building up they will hold moisture as well.

by the way, I also use coir bricks for propogating, so what I do now is use them for that first, and toss the left over coir into a bucket to use later in the worm bin. I dont know if it's available where you are, it only costs a few dollars a brick here but worth looking into to see if you can get it. I use it for propogating for the same reason, everything else just dries out too quickly but the coir is very good at holding water. as long as the worms have somewhere moist and cool and the heat isnt building up in the bin, they will cope with the heat.

I was sick last winter and my worms left my bin in droves when they didn't get any attention. I probably had less than 20 when I got a new bin and transferred them all into it.

I decided to put all my worm food into the blender to make it very small and then I left it outside for a day or two to let it get real icky and smelly. Boy do I have some happy worms now. In less than 6 months they have increased their population so much I think I'm going to have to release some of them or else get another bin.

Oh, I also use shredded cardboard for bedding. I have a shredder that doesn't require oil for the blades and it cuts the corrugated cardboard in 1/2 x 1" pieces. Got it at the Wally, and it was about $12. This make very fluffy bedding even when it's soaking wet. Toss together with some well-blended egg shells and a little garden soil, and the worms just move right on in.

Cheryl